NIOBRARA COUNTY - John Irving once observed, “Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t.”

And there is one vivid image that Jim Kremers’ memory refuses to let him forget. Unfortunately, the image isn’t a pleasant one.

“There are very few days that go by that I do not see a gun looking at me,” Kremers said.

The gun to which Kremers is referring was gripped in the hand of Charles Lannie Moses Jr., an armed fugitive who found his way onto the Kremers ranch on February 15, 2000. Last Saturday marked the 25^th anniversary of that harrowing scene. At that time, Kremers believed that it was the last scene he would ever see.

“It might have been the end of me or my son,” Kremers said.

Yet, it would not be the end for Kremers or his son, Justin. Instead, it would be the end of a three-day manhunt that began in Nebraska and eventually crescendoed in Lusk. Moses had fled to Wyoming after a shootout with Nebraska law enforcement. The gun battle had resulted from one deputy’s attempt to take Moses into custody on Texas charges of evading arrest and theft. When the smoke had cleared, a total of three law enforcement officers were seriously injured. In particular, Nebraska State Trooper Jeff Crymble sustained a wound that cost him a portion of his intestine and his kidney.    

Clearly, Moses had demonstrated a propensity for criminal violence. Sadly, that potential would be fully realized on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 with Moses’ fatal shooting of Robert Sedlacek, a 48-year-old farmer. The murder had taken place eight miles from Paxton, Nebraska. From there, Moses would drive Sedlacek’s truck into Lusk. He would eventually discard the truck and continue his flight from justice on foot. Moses’ feet would carry him to the Kremers ranch, where he would confront a father-son duo for which he was ill-prepared. While Moses was armed with a rifle and a pistol, Kremers was armed with the requisite cunning to disarm the fugitive.

“We saw him, and he said something to both Justin and I,” said Kremers. “Neither of us understood what he had to say. So, Justin grabbed me and said, ‘Are you going to try to talk to him all night?’ So, we ran on over to the backside of the house. We have a lot of trees back there. It was dark back there. Justin said, ‘Dad, what are we going to do now?’”

According to Kremers, Justin’s question gave way to a moment of clarity for the beleaguered rancher.

“Everything just got clear,” Kremers said. “My breathing was plain. My thought process was clear. Just like that, my main thought was, ‘Whatever I do, I don’t want my son being killed and I don’t want my son having to kill him and go through the rest of his life knowing he had killed someone.’”

Kremers’ profound lucidity motivated him to find a peaceful solution to the potentially violent situation.

“That [a peaceful conclusion] ran through my mind,” said Kremers. “I thought, ‘How are we going to get out of this without big troubles?’”

Kremers opted for diplomacy. He decided that he would try to talk Moses into giving up his firearms. Yet, while Kremers sought a peaceful solution, he refused to leave himself entirely defenseless. Justin, who was also armed with a rifle, would act as Kremers’ insurance policy. 

“So, I said, ‘Justin, you take that big rifle that you’re carrying and… get up the hill high enough where you can get him in your sights,’” said Kremers. “I said, ‘I’ll just come down here on this side of the house and talk to him. Don’t bother shooting him unless he makes a move at me.’”

Justin circled around Kremers’ house and locked Moses in his sights. With his son covering him, Kremers approached Moses in hopes of initiating peaceful discourse.

“Before I got too close to him [Moses], I started talking to him,” Kremers said. “I talked him out of his big assault rifle.”

While the rifle was no longer a threat, Moses remained in possession of the pistol.

“So, I just walked right up to him,” said Kremers. “I started talking to him, trying to figure out a way to get him to release that big pistol. After about 30 or 40 minutes, it dawned on me that he was from Texas. I said, ‘Hey, how would you like to do some horse trading?’”

The “horse trade” so colorfully invoked by Kremers was actually a coded expression for mutual disarmament. Kremers brokered an arrangement where Justin would relinquish his rifle if Moses surrendered his pistol. The tenuous peace pact was cemented when Moses finally discarded his pistol in a nearby snowbank. With both parties disarmed, the fugitive allowed his emotional vulnerability to surface.

“He [Moses] walked up to me, put his arms around me, and started to cry,” Kremers said.

Kremers and his son subsequently escorted Moses to the house, where the fugitive was divested of his wet clothes and enjoyed a meal. Kremers even let Moses make a phone call to his mother. While the criminal ate, Justin made a subtle exit and hid Moses’ guns. Then, Justin ran to his brother’s house, where he contacted the sheriff. Shortly thereafter, Justin returned with a deputy and Moses was placed under arrest.

Eloquently synopsizing the apprehension of Moses, Justin said, “We got the bad guy. By working together, we were able to get him caught.”

Today, Moses sits in a prison in Omaha, Nebraska. Meanwhile, Kremers and his son sit in their respective homes in Lusk. The father-son duo’s 25-year-old standoff with a fugitive has made them into local celebrities.  

“We got a tremendous amount of newspaper coverage out of it,” said Kremers. “There were five different TV stations covering it. We received lots of personal letters from people thanking Justin and I for taking care of this situation.”  

With the anniversary of Moses’ capture, Lusk residents have the opportunity to recall a time when their little town had a brush with a dangerous criminal. For Kremers, however, that memory is relived every day. In particular, the local rancher’s memory will occasionally revive a fleeting glimpse of the gun he stared down 25-years ago.    

“I still recall vividly a lot of the happenings,” Kremers said. “I still see that pistol quite often and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”